I'm getting tired of people pretending Trump is in any way smart in the conventional sense or that "philosopers" are socially inept and incapable of understanding "street smarts". He's connected, famous and he has money. — Benkei

If you are in your twenties then your comment is understandable.

So to sum up: Trump is emotionally intelligent (in a very limited and specific way) and stupid in almost every other way possible. — Benkei

And yet he has taken over half of the world's leading superpower and earned the attention of almost the entire planet, while you honk your little posts to almost nobody on a tiny forum.

Are you perhaps familiar with the concept of evidence?

Right. He is the cause, which is strong grounds to apply the 25th amendment. But lying about voter fraud, even if the cause of the coup, is not an outright incitement to insurrection. — Kenosha Kid

I agree that he has skillfully walked the line between legal and illegal.

Yeah, I know you like this line, you use it a lot, but Trump couldn't outsmart a banana — Kenosha Kid

Apologies, meaning no offense, but the majority of this thread is really little more than the usual fantasy superiority ego posturing so common on forums. Perhaps we could cut the crap and just get down to what we really want to do.

We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.
We are smart and everyone else is stupid.

We are smart and everyone else is stupid. — Hippyhead

Some of us are smart and Trump is stupid.

Apologies, meaning no offense, but the majority of this thread is really little more than the usual fantasy superiority ego posturing so common on forums. Perhaps we could cut the crap and just get down to what we really want to do. — Hippyhead

You're projecting. You keep pushing the incredible lie that Trump is some street-smart operator. It's your religion. It doesn't take a genius to differentiate between an over-entitled moron and someone with realpolitik savvy. If you don't like having your religious views refuted, don't rely on them in argument.

Are you perhaps familiar with the concept of "single cause fallacy"?

And yet he has taken over half of the world's leading superpower — Hippyhead

You're not very good at math are you?

If you want to prove your point, why don't you demonstrate what "smart things" Trump has done that has led to his election victory? Tell me where he's made conscious choices to do things a certain way as opposed to others that paved the way to his election?

All these processes are never the product of the actions of one man. They require socio-economic circumstances to be a certain way, populism thrives in downturns. It requires a political party prepared to back him. It requires a two-party system to garner that many votes. The idea that Trump would have been a meaningful political player if there was a plurality of political parties is quite frankly idiotic.

There's a lot of evidence that Trump has the attention span of a fruit fly and cannot plan. He doesn't read, he walks out on meetings when bored, he's consistently described by people who know him as a fucking moron. And despite such direct testimony and evidence in his every day speeches and tweets, all you have is "but he won the election" without any ability as to explaining why he won. I've offered a theory and there's plenty of psychological and sociological work to support that theory.

All these processes are never the product of the actions of one man. They require socio-economic circumstances to be a certain way, populism thrives in downturns. — Benkei

Blah, blah, blah, college sophomore punditry. And if you really are a college sophomore, then ok, pretty good. Keep going.

Great non-argument as usual. You really can't handle disagreement can you? Just like Trump. You must be seeing yourself in him and therefore cannot accept he's stupid.

If you want to prove your point, why don't you demonstrate what "smart things" Trump has done that has led to his election victory? Tell me where he's made conscious choices to do things a certain way as opposed to others that paved the way to his election? — Benkei

You keep pushing the incredible lie that Trump is some street-smart operator. — Kenosha Kid

Generally speaking this whole thread is confusing two different things.

Is Trump evil? Yes.

Does that automatically mean he's stupid? No.

This is a philosophy forum. Not Twitter. Not Facebook. Not the pub downtown. A philosophy forum.

And thus it would seem appropriate that we make at least some good faith effort to observe the Trump phenomena with some detachment.

Do we all hate Trump? YES! So let's go ahead and say that another 3,000 times, get it out of our system, and then erase the thread and start a new one.

If you want to prove your point, why don't you demonstrate what "smart things" Trump has done that has led to his election victory? — Benkei

I don't wish to prove anything to you. You win.

If you'd like to disclose how old you are I would be willing to have more patience with someone who may be 40 years my junior.

Does that automatically mean he's stupid? No. — Hippyhead

Ahem. As I said, you keep pushing the incredible lie that Trump is a street-smart operator. The confusion is not mine. You keep introducing it. This assertion of yours had extremely low relevance to the point I was making.

Some of us are smart and Trump is stupid. — Michael

Those of us who think Trump is stupid are not smart, at least not on this particular topic. They may be very smart on other topics. What's really happening in this thread is herd mentality, a tribal dance where like minded people gather to tell each other how right they are, over and over and over again. In other words, this is the Internet. :-) But not really philosophy.

As I said, you keep pushing the incredible lie that Trump is a street-smart operator. — Kenosha Kid

If we wish to abandon all evidence from the real world, then I agree I'm totally wrong.

My age is irrelevant but good to know you have no basis for your position and like to hide behind your lack of patience and a nice case of ageism. So no argument and no character?

We all agree that Trump is not an articulate intellectual, like Obama for example. And we probably all prefer articulate intellectuals because, after all, this is a philosophy forum. So far so good.

What members are doing is leaping from the agreed upon fact that Trump is not an articulate intellectual, the kind of person we prefer, to the conclusion that he is therefore stupid.

And one of the key reasons that Trump got elected is that we've been making this same self serving error in regards to truck drivers, waitresses, car mechanics, farmers, factory workers and so on. For decades (since at least the sixties) we've been looking down our snooty noses at such folks based on the ignorant assumption that articulate presentation is the only valid measure of intelligence.

And guess what? A lot of these folks are getting kinda sick of that. And then some hyper confident strong man comes along, raises his middle finger and jams it in our eyes, channeling the pent up frustrations of those we've been insulting for years. He bellows that we liberals are arrogant assholes, and it works, because there's some truth in that claim.

There's plenty of stupid to go around. Lots of these folks used to be Democratic voters. It's we who lost them.

That's not because I'm smart and you're stupid. Not that. It's because I'm 68 and you're probably 22. That is, I've been doing this since before your parents were born, and you're just getting started. — Hippyhead

I mean clearly it's not because you're smart and he is stupid, since everyone can see that you're not smart. But good job turning those 68 years of experience into one post that establishes that fact beyond reasonable doubt.

I like to compare Trump to Mick Jagger. Jagger is only barely a musician, but he has charisma out the ass. He can't play lead guitar worth a shit, but he can play an audience like the true world class pro that he is.

If we were to ask Jagger a detailed question about music theory, he'd likely look stupid. He's certainly not a jazz musician. But if we were to ask him to channel the egos of a 100,000 human beings in a stadium, he's fucking brilliant.

If we look at Jagger strutting around on stage making all the usual rock star pouty faces, he actually looks kinda stupid. But his business is not music theory, it's human ego. And ego is the little four year old child still residing within all of us. Ego is pretty stupid, so if you want to talk to ego, or many millions of egos, it's smart to talk the language that ego understands.

Thus, Jagger can look stupid, and actually be stupid in some regards, while also being brilliant.

I agree I'm totally wrong. — Hippyhead

In the spirit of your selection bias, seconded.

I like to compare Trump to Mick Jagger. Jagger is only barely a musician, but he has charisma out the ass. — Hippyhead

Those who are rimming Jagger might well say so.

Those who are rimming Jagger might well say so. — Kenosha Kid

And so it goes.

There are many millions of Trump voters — Hippyhead

That’s the problem. In a sane world, there would be very, very few. Or none.

When we can't defeat the point, try to defeat the person. — Hippyhead

That is a good description of your recent posts, including this one, yes.

There's a very rigid group consensus here. Readers apparently wish for me to join in the self serving chanting, to go along to get along etc. If I was smart I'd do that, and then I'd have friends. — Hippyhead

Or perhaps the arguments you are making are simply not very convincing. But I get it's much better for one's ego to imagine oneself as the lone warrior for truth, martyred by group consensus.

What members are doing is leaping from the agreed upon fact that Trump is not an articulate intellectual, the kind of person we prefer, to the conclusion that he is therefore stupid. — Hippyhead

Does this look like something any smart person would have done? On live television?

If you want to prove your point, why don't you demonstrate what "smart things" Trump has done that has led to his election victory? Tell me where he's made conscious choices to do things a certain way as opposed to others that paved the way to his election? — Benkei

He can be stupid in some ways and savvy in others. As Bill Clinton said, he's a master brander. He was very effective in tapping into the concerns of average Americans.

That young earth creationist, Ken Ham, started in Sydney, I used to drive past an Answers in Genesis billboard, with dinosaurs on it. But he had to relocate to Kentucky to get an audience. — Wayfarer

Oh no. It's the Who Made Up the Weirdest Religion challenge.

In terms of numbers and longevity, I think we've got you beat.

Because none of those things can be shown to reasonably expect as a consequence a violent coup in the Capitol. It's not about causality -- the 25th amendment option has been rejected. It's about criminal culpability. — Kenosha Kid

I disagree. I think anyone who can't see the intent is closing their eyes, willingly ignoring, and making a judgement based in ignorance. What was the purpose in repeating over and over again, that the election was stolen? It was to make his followers think that a criminal act was carried out against them. That's the key point, the deception employed to make others think that a criminal act had been carried out against himself, and against them. That's Trump's MO, we saw it in his fight against Clinton, "lock her up". To "steal" has strong implications, as necessarily criminal. So then he proceeded as far as possible, to demonstrate to those followers that he had attempted every legal course to get what was criminally taken, back. He went to state supreme court and federal supreme court. He had demonstrated, with intent, to those people who had come to believe that the theft occurred, that the legal system had failed them.

At this point he has four significant possible choices. 1) He could accept the legal judgement and tell all his followers that he was wrong in claiming that the election was criminally stolen. 2) He could continue to believe that the the election was stolen (if he even believed that in the first place), and suffer in silence. 3)He could continue to talk about it with resignation that there is nothing which can be done. 4) He could rile up his followers to fight the legal system itself. He chose 4), because 1), 2), and 3), are all inconsistent with what his intent was..

You might claim that 4) does not imply inciting insurrection, because if you or I were to fight the legal system because of some perceived unjust judgement, this would not constitute insurrection. But we need to account for the nature of the thing which was said to be stolen, and the nature of the "fight" which was called for. If you or I were to fight against an unjust judgement, we would be fighting within the bounds of the legal system. We might take it right to the supreme court, but then we reach the end of our possible fight. What more could we fight against, the legal system itself? In Trump's case the "fight" has already gone to the supreme court. So any fight at this point would be outside the law. Furthermore, the thing stolen was "the country", and the "fight" was to take it back.

In the context of an election rally, 'let's fight to take back the country' is not an incitement to insurrection. In the context of a stop the steal rally, after all legal options have been exhausted, 'let's fight to take back the country', cannot be associated with any possible intent other than. to incite insurrection. If you or I were to stand on a grand and elaborate stage, in front of thousands and thousands of people, after a favoured candidate had lost an election, and tell those people, march to the Capitol and fight to take back our country, and those people proceeded to violently attack the Capitol, how could you conceive of a defense involving lack of intention? Even if you insist, you were speaking metaphorically and you didn't expect the people to take you literally, you need to account for the intent behind your metaphorical speech. And there is no other possible intent evident for such a speech, no matter how metaphorical the language, except to incite mob violence. You might simply appeal to ignorance.

See the simple fact? He did not tell the participants at the rally, that there was nothing short of insurrection which could be done now, and advise them to go home in peace. No, he riled up their anger and frustration and told them to march to the capitol and fight. He might claim that he had no intent because he was truly ignorant, but criminal law does not allow you to substitute intent with ignorance because it would be a loophole allowing criminals who are proficient liars, to go unpunished.

It’s an NBC-affiliated local news site from Salt Lake City. You guess wrong.

I don’t believe Antifa had anything to do with the capitol riots.

See the simple fact? He did not tell the participants at the rally, that there was nothing short of insurrection which could be done now, and advise them to go home in peace. No, he riled up their anger and frustration and told them to march to the capitol and fight. He might claim that he had no intent because he was truly ignorant, but criminal law does not allow you to substitute intent with ignorance because it would be a loophole allowing criminals who are proficient liars, to go unpunished.

“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6

Deutsche Bank rules out future business with Trump

German-based Deutsche Bank will halt all business with President Trump, his family, and his personal businesses, Bloomberg reported.

Two officials at the bank who remained anonymous told the news outlet that the bank will not conduct further business with the president other than overseeing the repayment of existing loans totaling more than $300 million.

How long till he goes broke?